Command Hospital feted for strides in organ transplant

Tribune News Service

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Chandigarh, August 3
The Army’s Western Command Hospital, Chandimandir, was honoured with the ‘Best Emerging National Transplant Retrieval Hospital’ award by the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation today. The hospital was selected for this award from over 300 such institutes across the country.
The award was received by the Hospital Commandant Maj Gen Mathews Jacob and head of the transplant team Brig Anuj Sharma from the Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Anupriya Patel, during the 14th Indian Organ Donation Day function held in New Delhi.
Organ donation and retrieval was started in the armed forces in the late 2000s and introduced at the Western Command Hospital in 2014, where about 75 such procedures have been performed so far. The hospital also has to its credit several firsts for any military hospital in the country like harvesting pancreas from a brain-dead person and retrieving the organs from a cardiac-dead person, a technically difficult procedure.
Harvesting liver, kidney, heart and pancreas for transplant from the bodies of the deceased has given a new lease of life to not only critically ill armed forces personnel and their dependents but also a few civilians. The process is coordinated by the Armed Forces Organ Retrieval and Transplantation Authority in New Delhi.
Meanwhile, the Regional Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (ROTTO), North, PGIMER, received the prestigious ‘Best ROTTO’ award. PGIMER Director Vivek Lal said, “It is a profound honour to be acknowledged at the national level for our commitment to promote organ donation.”